Part 67 (2/2)

”There it is,” I urged. ”Keep on--just to the left.”

”I see it,” returned Burnside a moment later catching with his naked eye the thin line of foam on the water left by the periscope. ”Would you mind getting that torpedo ready?” he continued. ”I'll tell you just what to do. They'll try to duck as soon as they see us, but it won't be any use. They can't get totally submerged fast enough.”

Following Burnside's directions I adjusted the firing apparatus of the torpedo.

”Let it go!” shouted Burnside.

I did so, as he volplaned down almost to the water. The torpedo fell, sank, bobbed up, then ran along just tinder the surface. Already I was somewhat familiar with the wireless device that controlled it, so that while Burnside steadied the aircraft I could direct it, as he coached me.

The submarine saw it coming now. But it was too late. It could not turn; it could not submerge in time.

A terrific explosion followed as the torpedo came in contact with the boat, throwing a column of water high in the air. A yawning hole was blown in the very side of the submarine. One could see the water rush in.

Inside, Del Mar and his men were now panic-stricken. Some of them desperately tried to plug the hole. But it was hopeless. Others fell, fainting, from the poisonous gases that were developed.

Of them all, Del Mar's was the only cool head.

He realized that all was over. There was nothing left to do but what other submarine heroes had done in better causes. He seized a piece of paper and hastily wrote:

Tell my emperor I failed only because Craig Kennedy was against me.--DEL MAR.

He had barely time to place the message in a metal float near-by. Down the submarine, now full of water, sank.

With his last strength he flung the message clear of the wreckage as it settled on the mud on the bottom of the bay.

Burnside and I could but stare in grim satisfaction at the end of the enemy of ourselves and our country.

Up the hillside plodded Professor Arnold still in his wild disguise as the hermit. Now and then he turned and cast an anxious glance out over the bay at the fast disappearing periscope of the submarine.

Once he paused. That was when he saw the hydroaeroplane with Burnside and myself carrying the wireless torpedo.

Again he paused as he plodded up, this time with a gasp, of extreme satisfaction. He has seen the water-spout and heard the explosion that marked the debacle of Del Mar.

The torpedo had worked. The most dangerous foreign agent of the coalition of America's enemies was dead, and his secrets had gone with him to the bottom of the sea. Perhaps no one would ever know what the nation had been spared.

He did not pause long, now. More eagerly he plodded up the hill, until he came to the hut.

He pushed open the door. There lay Elaine, still bound. Quickly he cut the cords and tore the gag from her mouth.

As he did so, his own beard fell off. He was no longer the hermit. Nor was he what I myself had thought him, Arnold.

”Craig!” cried Elaine in eager surprise.

Kennedy said not a word as he grasped her two hands.

”And you were always around us, protecting Walter and me,” she half laughed, half cried hysterically. ”I knew it--I knew it!”

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